CRESTVIEW — Okaloosa County had scarcely been carved out of eastern Santa Rosa and western Walton counties when Andrew Outlaw opened an outdoor movie show on the site of today’s First Presbyterian Church.
While Andrew cranked his homemade projector, his wife, Bessie, sold popcorn. Patrons of Okaloosa's first picture show sat on split-log benches while enjoying silent films.
Around 1932, the Outlaws built Main Street’s first cinema, the Crestview Theatre, which stood across the alley from today’s Crestview Plumbing and Hardware.
In 1941, Neal and Estelle Robinson Sr. moved their cinema business to Crestview from Okaloosa County's south end, establishing the Eglin Theatre at 190 Main St.
Two years later, they moved the Eglin across the street, near the site of the Outlaws' old Crestview Theatre. In the 1940s, the Robinsons opened the Fox Theatre in the 300 block of Main Street.
Today, only the Fox remains of downtown’s single-screen cinemas. It’s owned by City Councilman Mickey Rytman, who restores it as time and money permits.
In 1949, Hollywood came to Crestview when a 20th-Century Fox production crew arrived to shoot the Gregory Peck World War II adventure “Twelve O’Clock High.”
Lifelong resident J.T. Garrett gained fame among his peers by being hired fresh out of the military as Peck’s stand-in and driver.
When it came time to premiere the film in the South, the studio returned to Crestview and the Fox.
In the late 1950s, the Robinsons erected the Dixie Drive-In on Juke Hill, near the present-day Beall’s Outlet on South Ferdon Boulevard.
Hinson Ward followed suit with the Park Drive-In Theatre on U.S. Highway 90 West.
The opening of the Crestview Cinema 3 Theaters in Mariner Mall in the mid-1970s came as the multi-screen cinema spelled classic downtown movie houses' demise.
Today, movie lovers flock to Richbourg Lane and the Marquis, with its 10 screens, digital picture and surround-sound audio. Movies have come a long way since Andrew Outlaw’s outdoor picture show.
Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: 100 years of north Okaloosa County movie-going